Contextualizing Period 5 OBJECTIVE: Explain the context in which sectional conflict emerged from 1844 to 1877.
5
The acquisition and settlement of new territories in the western half of the North American continent
opened up a question that politicians had sought to avoid -- should these new territories allow slavery? Most
northern politicians were not abolitionists; indeed, abolitionism was a minority position in the North in 1850.
However, the issue of the expansion of slavery became increasingly divisive in the 1850s. Some northerners
adopted the free-soil ideology -- the idea that lands out West should be open to small-scale farming, without
competition from large-scale plantation agriculture using slave labor. By the end of the decade, more
northerners were grappling with the moral issues around slavery. Positions became decidedly more
entrenched on the eve of the Civil War.
The importance of the Civil War to American history cannot be overstated. This bloody war settled
one of the most vexing issues in American history -- the existence of slavery in an otherwise democratic
country -- and opened up space for broad debates about the substance of democracy in post-Civil War
America.
WRITE THE CONTEXTUALIZATION FOR PERIOD 5 BELOW: (See if you can do it in one or
two sentences)
ANSWER HERE:
INT